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Tribal Conflict in London, Incited by a Kick

LONDON — A man lies injured. His opponent stands over him claiming he meant no harm. The referee advances as teammates of the fallen man question how someone paid millions for his gifts can kick a fellow professional with such wretched timing that he threatens the limb, perhaps even the career, in a moment of recklessness.

Welcome to the Arsenal vs. Spurs, a rivalry that has divided the soccer tribes of north London since the derby matches began, this very week 125 years ago.

Conflict is a part of what makes the English league such compelling viewing that television companies across the globe have just signed a new deal, worth £5 billion, or nearly $8 billion, that flies in the face of the global economy.

The kick that inflamed tensions at Arsenal’s packed, 60,000-seat stadium on Saturday was made by Emmanuel Adebayor. The Togolese player has played both sides of this conflict, having been an Arsenal player from 2006 to 2009.

Since then, Adebayor, at times a wondrous goal scorer, has been suspended for violently kicking a former Arsenal colleague, Robin van Persie. Now, Adebayor will be banned again for his high and late challenge that could have broken the ankle of Santi Cazorla.

A Togolese kicks a Spaniard and squares up to an Englishman and then a Frenchman before the referee orders his expulsion with the red card.

“I completely understand,” Adebayor later told The Sun newspaper, “that my sending off changed the outcome of the derby. And I wholeheartedly apologize to my teammates, the manager, and all the Tottenham fans for letting them down.”

The one person he appeared to overlook in his apology was the victim of his foul. Cazorla stands about chest high to Adebayor but was too quick for him. And, perhaps because players at this level can sense a dangerous kick coming, the Spanish playmaker saved himself from a serious injury by attempting to hurdle the flailing kick a split second before the worst of the impact.

“But my challenge was not malicious,” Adebayor told the newspaper. “Not in any way.” It was, he explained, the heat of the moment.

In the heat of that unacceptable moment, Adebayor probably did change the contest. He had scored the first goal in the 10th minute when he instinctively followed up a shot from Jermain Defoe that Arsenal’s goalie could not hold.

But then, chasing after the elusive Cazorla, he was sent off eight minutes later. Spurs went from leading to being outnumbered and outplayed until they finally lost the game, 5-2.

That score, identical to that in the derby last season at the same stadium, was reflective of how so many of the Arsenal-Tottenham encounters turn into goal gluts. Adebayor’s half-apology, his explanation that the atmosphere around this game gets inside the players’ heads, is almost true.

There were players from 10 different nations in this match. Adebayor is one of the many who has been brought to London and inducted into English soccer by Arsène Wenger, the Frenchman who has coached Arsenal since 1996.

In that time, Wenger has transformed the playing style of Arsenal. He has overseen a move from the old Highbury Stadium to the new ground, called the Emirates, and achieved Champions League qualification for the past 15 years despite having no generous Russian or Gulf state benefactor to buy polished players, like his rivals do.

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Yet because players like Cesc Fàbregas and van Persie — and even Adebayor — had chosen to leave Arsenal for bigger paychecks and better prospects, Wenger now suffers spiteful and sometimes xenophobic abuse from his own team’s supporters. He urbanely suggests that dealing with the fans’ displeasure, changing it if he can, is part and parcel of being employed in soccer.

Wenger also espoused another belief ahead of the North London tribal conflict. His team had struggled for rhythm and for the customary flow synonymous with his work, but he drew on the spectacular goal scored in Sweden last week by Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

“That shows how important confidence is in our sport,” Wenger told both the players and the news media. “To just do things with a freedom of spirit, without any hand brake, is very important in football.”

No inhibitions and no concession to the presumed might of other teams are other attractions to the English Premier League.

The derby Saturday was sustained not simply by Arsenal’s use of its one-man advantage to come from behind, but by Tottenham’s refusal to play the defensive game that in other leagues would have followed such an early red card. Spurs felt they could attack Arsenal’s vulnerable defense, but the more they tried it, the more Cazorla’s passing and Theo Walcott’s pace carved Tottenham open at the back.

The home crowd went home singing. That was also the case at Norwich and at West Bromwich, where the stadiums — though with less than half the capacity of Arsenal or Manchester United — throbbed with fervor that communicates itself to players.

Norwich City is a country cousin, a pleasant place on England’s east coast, with a team that every seven years or so fancies its chance against Manchester United.

The crosser is on loan from Lazio. The header was briefly a trainee at United’s youth academy. A boy forgotten by Ferguson came back to bite him.

West Bromwich Albion’s 2-1 victory over Chelsea also had an element of biting back. The Albion coach, Steve Clarke, played more than 400 times in Chelsea’s defense. He was assistant coach at Chelsea to José Mourinho, and assistant thereafter to Gianfranco Zola at West Ham United, and to Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool.

Always the No. 2, until now, Clarke, at 49, has become a head coach. His West Brom team stands fourth in the league, one point behind Chelsea. It’s England, and nobody can deny it’s competitive.